Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/322

 kind found frequently enough in small towns and religious communities. It must be remembered that she was the daughter of Cyrus Spragg, the Prophet, and the sister of Uriah Spragg. The one was an over-sexed and lecherous old man and the other a religious fanatic.

4. The story of Bestia and the strange happenings there with Peppina and the goats may be explained, if they ever occurred at all, simply as the eccentricities of a half-mad old woman, magnified and embellished by the imaginations of superstitious and ignorant peasants and of a woman (Signora Bardelli, the janitress) who was, either sincerely or insincerely, a devotee of the Black Arts. That Miss Annie Spragg was in any way responsible for the subsequent behavior of the girl Peppina seems unlikely. The character of the girl from childhood was clearly that of an epileptic and a moral imbecile and of one destined from birth to end her career in a brothel.

5. The testimony of the nun Sister Annunziata and the priest Father Baldessare (later killed in a riot in Milan where he was mistaken by Fascists for a Communist) is highly unreliable owing to the unbalanced character of the nun's mind and the general stupidity of the priest who appears to have been the dupe of various people throughout his life.

6. The brutal murder of Reverend Uriah Spragg could have been committed by a passing tramp or by one of his own flock in a fit of hatred or religious insanity.

7. The apparently miraculous disappearance